1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a cleaning apparatus for cleaning a substance or a surface of the substance.
2. Description of the Related Art
For cleaning the substance or the surface of the substance, various cleaning apparatuses or cleaning tools are used such as cleaning tool with brushes, vacuum cleaners and mops, according to the substance to be cleaned. The substance to be cleaned, includes a floor, a wall, a tile, a carpet, a bathtub, a sink, cooking utensils and a toilet pot in a house or a building.
In case the substance is a mouth cavity, they brush a surface of teeth, gums and between teeth and gums, in order to clean by using toothbrush and toothpaste.
Dirty component contacted or adhered on the substance to be cleaned (herein after called cleaned substance) includes bust of textile fibers, garbage of foods, nicotine and tar of cigarettes, bacteria, molds, small animals such as flea and tic etc. When the bacteria and molds are adhered on such organic dirty components as the garbage of foods and a dead body of small animal, they increases rapidly and the cleaned substances become dirty more and more according to a lapse of time.
Inside the mouth cavity the dirty components such as a plaque, a bacteria and scale are easy to contact or adhere to teeth. The plaque is a harmful substance that forms on the teeth causing from the bacteria glowing themselves by taking nutriment of the foods garbage and water. The bacteria live in the plaque. The scale is Ca-phosphate caused by combining the plaque and Ca melting in saliva.
However, it is difficult to remove the dirty components such as bacteria and molds only by using the conventional cleaning apparatus or tool. Therefore it is necessary to use a cleaning agent such as soap or a sterilizing agent such as alcohol or cresol, in addition to the conventional cleaning apparatus or tool.
Since plaque is highly adhesive and is not soluble in water, it is necessary to remove the plaque from the teeth by ordinary tooth brushing. And the teeth are easy to become decayed teeth in which enamel of the teeth is dissolved by the plaque. Accordingly, they must go to a dental clinic periodically in order to remove or delete the scale, where the scale fixed on the teeth is physically remove from the teeth by use of special dental tools.
It is known that a photocatalyst activating by light rays with relatively short wave length decomposes or dissolves a substance which is contacted, stacked or closed with the photocatalyst by reaction of oxidation and/or reduction or photocatalyst effect.
Typical photocatalyst is a kind of photo activated semiconductor such as Titan Oxide (TiO2).
In case multiple of photocatalyst particles are used as a form of photocatalyst supported substrate in which a layer including the photocatalyst particlesis fixed and supported on the substrate, the recycle use of photocatalyst particles can be easily done because the separation and collection of the photocatalyst particles are not needed.
The publication of unexamined patent application of Japan No. 155726/1993 discloses that Titan Oxide layer of photocatalyst is coated on a substrate such as metal, ceramics and glass, for the purpose of protecting a surface of the substrate from growth of bacteria.